eeds their roots. And it is only the
grasses and the poppies that hide the bones of men we've never yet put
underground. Nature has been one of our chief sextons, here at Verdun. I
wish you could have seen the poppies a few months ago, mixed with blue
marguerites and cornflowers--that we call 'bluets.' We used to say that
our dead were lying in state under the tricolour flag of France. But I
have made you sad, Mademoiselle. _Je regrette!_ We must take you quickly
to the citadel. Our general will not let you be sad there."

We turned from the view over the Meuse and walked away in silence. I
thought I had never heard so loud, so thunderously echoing, a silence in
my life.

Oh, no, it was not sad in the citadel! It was, on the contrary, very
gay, of a gaiety so gallant and so pathetic that it brought a lump to
the throat when there should have been a laugh on the lips. But the lump
had to be swallowed, or our hosts' feelings would be hurt. They didn't
want watery-eyed, full-throated guests at a luncheon worthy of bright
smiles and keen appetites!

* * * * *

The first thing that happened to Mother Beckett and me in the famous
fortress was to be shown into a room decorated as a ladies' boudoir. All
had been done, we were told almost timidly, in our honour, even the
frescoes on the walls, painted in record time by a young lieutenant, who
was an artist; and the officers hoped that they had forgotten nothing we
might need. We could both have cried, if we hadn't feared to spoil our
eyes and redden our noses! But even if we'd not been strong enough to
stifle our tears, there was everything at hand to repair their ravages.
And all this in a place where the Revolution had sent fourteen lovely
ladies to the guillotine for servilely begging the King of Prussia to
spare Verdun.

The lieutenant who met us at Bar-le-Duc had rushed there in
advance of us, in order to shop with frantic haste. A long list must
have been compiled after "mature deliberation"--as they say in
courts-martial--otherwise any normal young man would have missed out
something. In the tiny, subterranean room (not much larger than a cell)
a stick of incense burned. The cot-bed of some hospitable captain or
major disguised itself as a couch, under a brand-new silk table-cover
with the price-mark still attached, and several small sofa cushions,
also ticketed. A deal table had been painted green and spread with a
lace-edged tea-clot